Wow, 50p A Week

The government is considering cutting the value of the main employment and support allowance (ESA) sickness benefit by as much as £30 so that it is effectively worth the same as jobseeker's allowance, internal documents seen by the BBC suggest. 'New claimants, judged to be capable of work with appropriate support, could be given just 50p more per week than people on jobseeker's allowance (JSA). .... George Osborne, the chancellor, has said he is seeking a £12bn cut in the welfare bill, and has so far identified a quarter of these cuts mainly through freezing the value of most benefits for two years.' (Guardian, 30 October) Whenever a government has financial problems its first response is always to cut welfare payments. RD